The Pop Art Of War

 Famously, there was a sign that sat on President Harry Truman's desk. It read: The Buck Stops Here. In his farewell address, Harry addressed this historic decoration, reminding us that,  "The President, whoever he is, has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That's his job."

This is coming from the man who decided to drop not one but two atomic weapons on Japanese cities to hasten the end of World War II. More than two hundred thousand people died as a result of this action. Most of these were civilians. Many still argue that if the United States had lost the war, Truman and his advisors would have been put on trial as war criminals. Even with the Potsdam Declaration, there was no way for Japan to have anticipated just how overwhelming the power of a nuclear weapon would be. J. Robert Oppenheimer did. Upon witnessing the first detonation of his invention, he quoted the Bhagavad Gita:  "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Until his death, Harry Truman defended his decision, as the sign on his desk suggested. Oppenheimer became a staunch advocate for the control of weapons calling for international transparency and oversight. 

That didn't happen. 

Eighty years later, the occupant of what is left of the White House does not have a sign on his desk suggesting that all his decisions are final. This would not allow him to swing and swerve to avoid committing to any one choice or plan. Instead, he has a button, which allows him to summon a Diet Coke whenever he so desires. When it comes to military decisions, he is quick to laud those moments that he feels expand his already inflated self-image. Or, as in the case of the second use of an air strike to finish off the survivors of an initial attack on a suspected drug running boat, he chose along with his Attack Dog to throw the blame on the Admiral who carried out the order. “I didn’t know about the second strike. I didn’t know anything about the people. I wasn’t involved, and I knew they took out a boat, but I would say this, they had a strike," declared the Diet Coke drinker. Initially, Pete the Pit Bull asserted, “I watched it live. We knew exactly who was in that boat, we knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented.” That account has since been changed to,  “As you can imagine, at the Department of War, we got a lot of things to do, so I didn’t stick around for the hour and two hours, whatever, where all the sensitive site exploitation digitally occurs, so I moved on to my next meeting.” Leaving Navy Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley squarely in the path of the accountability bus. 

It should be noted that aside from the consumption of Diet Coke there is another stark contrast between these incidents: One occurred during a declared war. The operation that destroyed a suspected drug boat and the follow-up that killed the survivors clinging to the burning wreckage occurred during a distraction created to keep the public from noticing that the Epstein Files remain unreleased. 

Why the Buck is that? 

Wretched Refuse

 How about hydraulics? Maybe animal domestication? Lest we forget the use of cannons in warfare, or perhaps a rich tradition of oral poetry and storytelling. 

Don't tell me the Somalis never contributed anything to civilization. 

Harry Lime reminds us, “In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Contrast this from the felon in chief: “And when I said, you know, ‘Why can’t we allow people to come in from nice countries,’ I’m trying to be nice. Nice countries, you know like Denmark, Switzerland? Do we have any people coming in from Denmark? How about Switzerland? How about Norway?”

So just for a moment, let's set aside the relative cultural achievements and focus on the reasons why people immigrate to another country. Chief among these would be oppression. You've heard of such a thing, right? Like when the pilgrims fled England because they felt they were being persecuted because of their religion? We just had a big meaty holiday to celebrate it. This notion was such a big hit that we started telling the world that we had this great big continent that we needed to fill up with, wait for it, Immigrants!

Try not to pay any attention to the genocide of native peoples necessary to achieve this end, since that spoils the image of that first Thanksgiving. 

Meanwhile, the French were so impressed by the way we were taking in huddled masses that they sent us a great big statue to put out on our front porch with a light to show the way. 

Don't get me wrong, I own a cuckoo clock. I really like it. But I also like hydraulics. And living in a melting pot. 

Connected

 A recent study suggested that children under the age of thirteen could face serious health risks if they have a "smart phone." They are at higher risk of lack of sleep, obesity and depression, according to a  study published this past Monday in the journal Pediatrics. 

Nobody asked me. All the kids I teach are under the age of thirteen. Can I say with clinical certainty that those who show up to school sleepy, depressed and have little or no interest in PE are that way because of their cell phones? No, I cannot. I do have plenty of anecdotal evidence, such as the conversations I have had with drowsy kids in my classroom who volunteer tidbits like, "I stayed up late last night on my phone." I have seen more than my share of kids sitting in tight huddles on our playground, staring at their phones, even though they are prohibited from doing so by a school-wide rule. 

And the depression thing? Let's just say that cyberbullying is a real thing. Lines of communication among our pre-teens are made even more confounding by text, TikTok and Instagram. Like their adult counterparts, they don't want to miss out on anything, even if the thing they might miss will bring them fear and sadness. 

How do we teach kids that cell phone use can be harmful? By centering so much of our own waking life around such devices. The staff at our school carry walkie talkies that we use for emergencies and requests for wet cleanups, but more often than not, we send a text. Many of our interactions become distilled into emojis or clever gifs. Rather than walking out to the playground to check on a colleague, I could just as easily send them a smiley face. 

Then there are the lessons we can learn from kids. Watch them play. See them resolve a conflict with rock, paper, scissors. Be amazed when the blood feud that started before the bell rang is over before lunch. That's not something the current occupant of what's left of the White House can do.  

Bully Pulpit

 On the one hand, you've got the drunken pit-bull of a Secretary of War killing helpless survivors of the destruction of a boat suspected of carrying drugs. On the other hand, you've got a presidential pardon for former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández who is currently serving a forty-five year sentence for (check your own notes with me) drug trafficking. 

Both hands have blood on them. 

And it is certain that one hand has no idea what the other is doing. 

Because this is how America is being run these days. 

As we rattle our sabers and prepare for a renewed war on drugs, we are showing a determination to resist consistency. Hernández conspired with drug cartels during his tenure as they moved more than four hundred tons of cocaine through Honduras toward the United States. The leaders of the cartels that didn't offer bribes to him were extradited to the United States. 

If this business model seems familiar, it could be that we have all become immune to this kind of malfeasance given the current version, Trump 2.0. 

Meanwhile, the focus of one of the world's biggest militaries is bearing down on one of the world's smallest. This seems to be the kind of bully aggression that fits in well with an administration that regularly sends combat ready troops into the streets of its own cities to kidnap its people and terrorize the locals. 

We seem to have passed right by the notion that this was all a smokescreen for the Epstein Files and progressed into straight up nihilism, a scorched earth policy with an emphasis on the scorch rather than the earth. 

At this rate, I wonder who will be left to enjoy the sumptuous amenities offered at the new Epstein Ballroom. 

Madness

 Last year the city of Stockton, California had fifty-four homicides. Currently the total for 2025 stands at thirty-four. Civically, this feels like a victory. 

This isn't your standard "superheroes save the day" kind of victory. This is a pyrrhic victory, named for King Pyrrhus of Epirus, who won a battle against the Romans, but the cost of that victory came at such a cost that it was tantamount to a defeat. 

In Stockton, the four people killed at a children's birthday party this past Saturday evening would be counted among that cost. Eleven more were wounded. The dead were aged eight, nine, fourteen and twenty-one. The celebration of young life turned into a gaping hole of mourning. 

As is my custom, I find myself wondering once again about guns. As of this writing, there is no suspect and there is no motive. Just four dead kids. And another city full of people wondering why. 

Why won't there be a ninth birthday party?

Why won't there be a tenth?

A fifteenth? 

The indiscriminate certainty of a bullet entering a tiny body is something we are forced, once again, to confront. How compressed and black a form of evil could pull the trigger on a room full of children? What sort of derangement would make it possible for such a tragedy? 

Every time I write one of these posts, I feel like I am leaving my mark at one of those little shrines left at the site of the latest murder. Here is my candle. Here are my thoughts. Here are my prayers. 

Then I go home and wait for the next one. 

I'm running out of candles. 

Learning To Fly

 For a moment, I would like to pause and mention that with all the other things going on in the world, I only dreamed about one thing while I was on Thanksgivng break: school. 

More to the point, I dreamed about my job school and how it affects those around me. There were plenty of mornings that I woke up with great relief, realizing that I had not missed an important class or meeting. I was not late for any of my ancillary duties and the elementary education train in my dreams kept running. 

But what was I doing at work when I could have been in the tropics? Or chasing rainbows? Or standing in line for the newest ride at Disneyland? 

I believe it's because I have seriously damaged my imagination. All these years of waking up and rushing to school to make sure the day begins with unlocked doors and PE equipment ready for the children to grab on their way in, under the watchful eye of yours truly, has created a rut that keeps me from taking flying lessons in my dreams. 

I understand that I have only myself to blame. I am frequently encouraged by my principal to take a day off. Or two. At the same time, it is her voice along with many other staff and parents who ask me "What would we do without you?'

Well, here's the sneaky little truth waiting just over the hill: My retirement. A few years back I made an agreement with my principal that I would stick around until she retired. That day is coming soon. Not in weeks or even months, but soon. Soon on a scale that sits at the end of three decades of service for both of us. I have only now begun to imagine what mornings might be like when I didn't have to get up and be responsible for the boys and girls and their restrooms. There is no real exit strategy beyond the exit. 

Someday I won't be getting up and going to school like I have for the past twenty-nine years. And I hope that in a year or so after that, I can start dreaming about those flying lessons. 

Pre-Occupied

 I hope that you enjoyed your Thanksgiving. I hope that you had a chance to catch up with family and friends and focus on the things that really matter. 

I hope you missed this: "…Even as we have progressed technologically, Immigration Policy has eroded those gains and living conditions for many. I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover, terminate all of the millions of Biden illegal admissions, including those signed by Sleepy Joe Biden’s Autopen, and remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization. These goals will bepursued with the aim of achieving a major reduction in illegal and disruptive populations, including those admitted through an unauthorized and illegal Autopen approval process. Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation. Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — "

This was how the convicted felon currently occupying what is left of the White House chose to greet the nation on its day of thanks. It came just a day after the shooting of two National Guard members who had been deployed to Washington D.C. to make it safe on the order of (checks notes) the author of the above screed. The same guy who only declared that "We haven't had a murder in six months" referring to his campaign to bring safety to our nation's capitol by imposing martial law. Besides the most recent death of the National Guard member, there have been sixty-two homicides in Washington D.C. since May 25 of this year.

Again, math has always been a challenge for the former game show host and leader of one of the world's most notorious gangs.

Meanwhile, the aggro response to each ugly development under his watch continues to be played off as anyone else's fault, resulting by far more draconian measures in an attempt to try and close the doors to a barn that has already burned down.

The murderer of twenty year old Sarah Beckstrom is a refugee from Afghanistan who had once worked with the CIA in his home country came to America to avoid retribution from the Taliban. His application for asylum was filed in 2024 and was granted in April of this year. Just about the time The twice-impeached "president" of this country started sending National Guard troops to (checks notes) Washington D.C.

In case you were still enjoying your tryptophan haze and missed all of that.

Welcome to month eleven of the occupation.